The champagne and the fireworks erupted into the air as West Ham celebrated
their return to the Premier League on Saturday.

But as the bubbles dispersed, so the cold, hard reality of what it all meant – where the east London club are, and where they might have been – struck home.

Upon relegation last year West Ham owed £41.6 million to the banks, £11.2 million in transfer debts and £17.3 million in unspecified “other creditors”, including reparations payments to Sheffield United over the Carlos Tévez scandal.

How much that position deteriorated in the Championship is unknown even to West Ham’s owners, but access to at least £39 million of broadcast payments alone will salve their ailing finances.

“We are back in the Premier League but the hard work starts on Monday because we are a club that is recovering from a difficult period in its history,” admitted the club’s chairman, David Gold.

“We’ve gone through some poor management structures. Our financial structure was poorly run for many years. We are getting to grips with that and getting back into the Premier League certainly helps with that endeavour.”

Gold, who along with his co-owner, David Sullivan, had invested £36 million in cash donations to the Upton Park club between taking over in January 2010 and going down last season, revealed that were it not for promotion, changes would quickly have been required.

“It would have cost probably around another £30 million,” he said. “But you never know [until] you sit down and work it out. It also depends on what you want to do.

"Do you want to challenge again in the Championship? If so you would have to find another £20 million, let’s say. Or if you don’t and you risk being relegated into League One then it would cost you nothing. It’s a business decision which would be up to David and I.

“We wouldn’t have sat there deluding ourselves, we would have needed to find more money. The first thing we would have done on Monday if we didn’t win was say we need to cut our cloth accordingly. It’s painful. If you own 150 oil wells it’s no problem. If you own 150 Ann Summers shops...”

Whatever the source of his own wealth, Gold must now try to compete against astronomically wealthy purveyors of the black gold.

When in 2010-11 his club last rubbed up against Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al Nahyan’s Manchester City and Roman Abramovich’s Chelsea, they scored three and conceded 11 in four comprehensive defeats, home and away.

Experiences in the Championship, where promotion remained in the balance until Ricardo Vaz Te rammed in an 87th-minute winner after Thomas Ince had hauled Blackpool level, can give scant indication of how West Ham will fare in the top flight again.

Yet despite the magnitude of the task ahead, West Ham manager Sam Allardyce wants to repay the club’s owners with more than mere survival.

“It’s really their passion for West Ham United which you have got to say is the most impressive, because they put their money where their mouth is,” Allardyce said.

“They stump it up: the club has to be propped up by their personal wealth. But you’ve got to give them results: if they stump it up and you do not deliver. So that’s the pressure you’re under.”

He added that the fans would know “we’re not going to win as many games next year as probably we’ve won this one. But if we get the right team together and we get the right team spirit then we’ll give it a right good go.

"Certainly my job will be to try to aim as high as we possibly can in the Premier League.”

Those players who have already experienced relegation now have an existential motivation to improve on last season’s performances.

Carlton Cole, scorer of West Ham’s opener with a composed finish, articulated how relegation had affected him. “I’ve kept my mouth shut for quite a while but I did take a wage cut to stay in the Championship,” he said.

“Half my wages just went. I have a lifestyle to maintain and I bought houses and everything. I took a big hit. We don’t want to be that close again. We have got to try to win games.

“I learnt my lesson this season and I will appreciate the Premier League more next season. Maybe I took it for granted. I am human.

"Sometimes God gives you challenges in life and it depends on how you bounce back from it. I bounced back straight away and I know what I missed and that was the Premier League. I’ve learnt my lesson not to get relegated again. I can’t take another hit.”

Uphill task for Allardyce

12: In the Premier League era 12 of the 20 teams who have come up through the play-offs have gone straight back down the following season.

3: Over the past nine seasons just three play-off winners survived in their first Premier League season. West Ham, who stayed in the top flight for six seasons after their 2005 promotion, Swansea City (promoted 2011) and Hull City (2008) bucked the trend.